Russia receives first bodies from Egypt plane crash

The first set of bodies from the Russian airline plane which crashed in Egypt on Saturday have arrived in St Petersburg.

The 144 bodies conveyed by a Russian government plane which arrived on Monday morning, were among the 224 passengers, most of them Russians, who died in the crash which occurred in Sinai, Egypt.
According to a report, an Il-76 Emergency Situations Ministry plane flew into St Petersburg’s Pulkovo Airport a little before 6 a.m. local time, carrying the bodies.

On arrival, the corpses were loaded onto stretchers and carried into a large white lorry waiting on the runway at Pulkovo Airport.

Authorities said that the next set of bodies would leave Cairo on Monday evening for St Petersburg.

The crashed Airbus A321 plane, operated by Russian airline Kogalymavia, was carrying holidaymakers from the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh to St Petersburg when it crashed in the Sinai Peninsula.

Russian officials had said that the plane likely broke up in mid-air but said that it was too early to draw conclusions on that.

Meanwhile, St Petersburg authorities have decided that official mourning events will last until Tuesday in the Russia’s second biggest city.